Why is Windows RT so BIG?

[lopri]

Some people probably heard of a recent lawsuit filed by an unhappy customer (or a frivolous lawyer, depending on your viewpoint) who found out there was only half the storage than he anticipated in Surface.

http://mashable.com/2012/11/15/microsoft-sued-for-surface-storage-space/

Andrew Sokolowski, a lawyer based in Los Angeles, filed a lawsuit against Microsoft on Tuesday for allegedly misleading consumers about the amount of storage space on the Surface tablet after he ran out of space on his 32 GB tablet shortly after buying it.

Microsoft was apparently prepared.

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en...ers-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-faq

Surface with Windows RT comes with either 32 GB or 64 GB of internal storage space (hard disk space). However, not all of this space is available for your music, photos, videos, and other content.

My question here isn't whether this is a deceptive marketing, but rather "What takes up so much space?" I thought Microsoft wanted a sort of clean break with legacy support starting with Windows RT? It's not like Windows RT comes with something visibly data-heavy (i.e. games, maps).. or does it? 8 GB for OS + Office is up there with full-blow x86 desktop. And 5 GB for recovery? Really? Is it MS' incompetence, or is there something that warrants extra space for Windows RT, compared to Android or iOS?

 

[IamDavid]

Ever use one? Its "RT" but its pretty much identical to full Windows so yes, it does require more space. If they'd remove any features, all the way down to the gay ass games, people would then be posting on Anandtech:
OMG!!!I f****** hate Microsoft !!! They deleted solitaire!!!!!!!!!!! Or maybe even worse, they didn't include drivers for my Iomega ZIP drive!!!!

Gotta love the internet......

 

[lopri]

You seem awfully informed and have an accordingly appropriate attitude. How about giving us some relevant information instead of thread crapping?

 

[Jodell88]

There's a reason Windows RT is more capable than Android or iOS.

 

[lopri]

Such as..? Is Windows RT as capable as Windows 7? or Windows XP, which has much smaller footprint, for that matter?

Edit: Look, I am not here to witch hunt. I simply want to know. I don't understand how some folks are so quick to jump the conclusion (on the conspiracy side). It only makes you look bad, and frankly I already have an idea where IamDavid is coming from considering the infestation of the forums by financially motivated members .

 

[bbhaag]

Personally I think IamDavid pretty much nailed it. Could you imagine the bitch fest that would go viral if Microsoft had to cut out certain parts of the OS? It would be awful. It would be a management blunder on a scale never seen before. Well maybe not, CokeII was a pretty bad one.

 

[Nothinman]

Some people probably heard of a recent lawsuit filed by an unhappy customer (or a frivolous lawyer, depending on your viewpoint) who found out there was only half the storage than he anticipated in Surface.

http://mashable.com/2012/11/15/microsoft-sued-for-surface-storage-space/



Microsoft was apparently prepared.

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en...ers-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-faq



My question here isn't whether this is a deceptive marketing, but rather "What takes up so much space?" I thought Microsoft wanted a sort of clean break with legacy support starting with Windows RT? It's not like Windows RT comes with something visibly data-heavy (i.e. games, maps).. or does it? 8 GB for OS + Office is up there with full-blow x86 desktop. And 5 GB for recovery? Really? Is it MS' incompetence, or is there something that warrants extra space for Windows RT, compared to Android or iOS?

It's very deceptive, although technically Apple and Android manufacturers are doing the same thing. The difference being that iOS and Android take up between 1 and 2G while Windows takes up like 14G with Office and such. When I read the Ars article about the the space issue I was astonished that MS would do that and figured a lawsuit would be in order soon enough.

There's a reason Windows RT is more capable than Android or iOS.

In what ways?

 

[lopri]

Could you imagine the bitch fest that would go viral if Microsoft had to cut out certain parts of the OS?

What parts are those? And are those "parts" something that's not available in competition? That's my question.

 

[IamDavid]

Sorry if I came across as thread crapping earlier.

I own both the surface rt and ATIV smart pc and beyond the legacy software support I see almost NO difference the typical user would notice. I was so impressed with the surface tablets I bought 9 for my company to use in the warehouse as a scanning solution. A cheap usb barcode scanner plugged right into the surface and worked. No set, no driver issue, it just worked. For 599 apiece it was a total steal compared to the $1800 alternative typical scan guns....

The ATIV blows it away in overall coolness but in the end the "Windows" part of both are close enough most would call it the same..

 

[IamDavid]

It's very deceptive, although technically Apple and Android manufacturers are doing the same thing. The difference being that iOS and Android take up between 1 and 2G while Windows takes up like 14G with Office and such. When I read the Ars article about the the space issue I was astonished that MS would do that and figured a lawsuit would be in order soon enough.



In what ways?

Ease of use. I was astonished at the ease interfacing with printers, networked computers and all other normal electronics a computer could connect to back in the pc days... show me a simple way to play a movie off a networked pc on a ios or android. With the win8 ones my kids can do it almost out of the box.. just gotta add homegroup password.
Don't get me wrong, ios and android are great but the haven't been friendly with the things we all used to know. No MS has shown them how it should be done.

 

[lopri]

Sorry, IamDavid. But yet again, your experience is totally irrevelent to the question I posed. I am glad that you're enjoying Surface. And I am sure many others do. But my question wasn't "How great is Surface?"

The topic at hand and what I am curious about is why Windows RT requires as much disk space as its desktop part, when it wasn't meant to be? Are there "certain parts" that are added functions, as bbhaag stated? If so, what are those?

 

[IamDavid]

Such as..? Is Windows RT as capable as Windows 7? or Windows XP, which has much smaller footprint, for that matter?

Edit: Look, I am not here to witch hunt. I simply want to know. I don't understand how some folks are so quick to jump the conclusion (on the conspiracy side). It only makes you look bad, and frankly I already have an idea where IamDavid is coming from considering the infestation of the forums by financially motivated members .

Wow, that was an odd comment...

 

[lopri]

Ease of use. I was astonished at the ease interfacing with printers, networked computers and all other normal electronics a computer could connect to back in the pc days... show me a simple way to play a movie off a networked pc on a ios or android. With the win8 ones my kids can do it almost out of the box.. just gotta add homegroup password.
Don't get me wrong, ios and android are great but the haven't been friendly with the things we all used to know. No MS has shown them how it should be done.

I hope you're a bit more specific. So what you're saying is Windows RT comes with built-in drivers for peripherals like Windows 7/8, and those are taking up disk space?

 

[IamDavid]

Sorry, IamDavid. But yet again, your experience is totally irrevelent to the question I posed. I am glad that you're enjoying Surface. And I am sure many others do. But my question wasn't "How great is Surface?"

The topic at hand and what I am curious about is why Windows RT requires as much disk space as its desktop part, when it wasn't meant to be? Are there "certain parts" that are added functions, as bbhaag stated? If so, what are those?

I think I'm lost... why isn't it mean to be a desktop? It is. It replaces any desktop or laptop or tablet on the market today. Delivery everything the current desktop experience does requires alotta space. Gotta keep minesweep and all those wonderful features 3 people in the world care for.

I don't agree with the marketing strategy but its far from illegal. Time will tell on that one.

 

[IamDavid]

I hope you're a bit more specific. So what you're saying is Windows RT comes with built-in drivers for peripherals like Windows 7/8, and those are taking up disk space?

Pretty much yes, I was very surprised to find this when I first bought the surface. I was expecting an entire new eco system of drivers to match the apps.

 

[lopri]

Wow, that was an odd comment...

Maybe you should look back on your first post in this thread?

Ever use one? Its "RT" but its pretty much identical to full Windows so yes, it does require more space. If they'd remove any features, all the way down to the gay ass games, people would then be posting on Anandtech:
OMG!!!I f****** hate Microsoft !!! They deleted solitaire!!!!!!!!!!! Or maybe even worse, they didn't include drivers for my Iomega ZIP drive!!!!

Gotta love the internet......

 

[lopri]

So others agree/confirm with IamDavid's diagonsis? (Hopefully from those who can verify the claim) Does Windows RT maintain backward compatibility when it comes to hardware drivers? Furthermore, are those driver packages and whatever network stack packages that are designed to maintain backward compatibility what take extra space on Windows RT compared to iOS or Android?

 

[Ferzerp]

In this thread, we have a poster who somehow thinks that despite every computer ever sold needing space allocated to an OS, this new tablet somehow should be marketed as the free space after OS overhead.

The devices come with exactly as much storage as they are marketed as having. You are buying hardware, not free space. This is nothing new. I'm getting the impression you're just looking to stir crap up.

 

[Dominato3r]

So others agree/confirm with IamDavid's diagonsis? (Hopefully from those who can verify the claim) Does Windows RT maintain backward compatibility when it comes to hardware drivers? Furthermore, are those driver packages and whatever network stack packages that are designed to maintain backward compatibility what take extra space on Windows RT compared to iOS or Android?

I don't know if IamDavid's explanation is correct, but he is right that pretty much every peripheral is supported.

MS's own page gives us a better look though: http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en...ers-and-online-storage/surface-disk-space-FAQ

Here they say the binary system or the way Windows calculates space is 29GB off the bat. Now I'm not too sure on this but this is the phenomenon we see with desktops/laptops where we are often missing many gigabytes of storage. Again, this si just what I've been told, I'm not 100% on it.

Next up we have recovery tools taking up 5GBs of space, which I would imagine is the recovery image.

After that we get to Windows RT and Office, which take up 8GB or space. It's still a lot, no doubt. It seems that the media has pinned it as "Windows takes up 16GB of space)

 

[lopri]

Ease of use. I was astonished at the ease interfacing with printers, networked computers and all other normal electronics a computer could connect to back in the pc days... show me a simple way to play a movie off a networked pc on a ios or android. With the win8 ones my kids can do it almost out of the box.. just gotta add homegroup password.
Don't get me wrong, ios and android are great but the haven't been friendly with the things we all used to know. No MS has shown them how it should be done.

Do you know that OS X users have been doing that for years on iOS? Easy of use.. it doesn't get much easier than Mac. I thought it was a common sense. Yet iOS isn't as big as OS X. If I'm not mistaken iOS installation size is like 1/10 of OS X.

 

[lopri]

In this thread, we have a poster who somehow thinks that despite every computer ever sold needing space allocated to an OS, this new tablet somehow should be marketed as the free space after OS overhead.

The devices come with exactly as much storage as they are marketed as having. You are buying hardware, not free space. This is nothing new. I'm getting the impression you're just looking to stir crap up.

I don't see anyone claiming what fits your description, but what I see is lack of reading comprehension.

Is it so hard to have a constructive/informative conversation without being confronted for something that's not stated?

 

[Ferzerp]

It's more that I got bored of your post and skimmed it after it was obvious that you were more interested in thinly veiled bashing than "constructive/informative conversation".

edit: And yes, when you have such a loaded title for your thread, and outright dismiss any reasons why your premise is flawed, it is difficult to take your claims at face value.

First post "bloated" "incompetent"

Third post "frankly I already have an idea where IamDavid is coming from considering the infestation of the forums by financially motivated members . "

You aren't the slightest bit interested in "constructive/informative conversation". This is your own personal "bash WinRT" thread.

 

[lopri]

I wonder if Windows RT ships with DirectX. (which just hit me) If so that could take up a sizable amount of storage. Does anyone know if Windows RT uses DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound, etc.), and if yes, which version?

Edit: Changed the thread title in order to help out the intellectually challenged.

 

[Ferzerp]

Changed the thread title in order to help intellectually challenged

This is not very conducive to what you claim you are seeking. It is, however, classic ad hominem for when one wants to dismiss all the words of others regardless of merit.

 

[lopri]

OK, I now know for certain that Windows RT uses DirectX, which distinguishes itself from other platforms. So that is one answer I've got (on my own). I don't know how much impact it has on storage compared to other platforms, though. But I suppose that's one contributing factor.

Frankly it's hard to think that driver packages taking up so much space on Windows RT. First of all, Surface has limited connectivity in the forms of USB and TCP/IP. In other words, you are not going to install video cards or RAID controllers there. So basically it leaves you with USB and USB peripherals. I don't know if it's true that if I connect my USB devices to Surface they will be supported (without Windows Updates) natively. Even if that's the case,

1) That can't possibly what makes Windows RT the size of Windows 7/8. Again, we're talking about USB devices, not PCI/PCIe devices.
2) That seems quite counter-productive to have Windows RT in the first place.

What else is contributing to the size of Windows RT?